Public Education Forum At the Press Launch

ANNA BARKER, Ph.D.
President and Director, National Biomarker Development Alliance
Co-Director, Complex Adaptive Systems; Professor, School of Life Sciences,
Arizona State University

As the director and president of the NBDA, Dr. Barker leads the strategic planning, staffing, program development and implementation. She works closely with the management team, advisors, external experts and other stakeholders to define the scope of targeted scientific and education projects and to achieve the mission of the NBDA.
She is Co-Director of Complex Adaptive Systems at ASU which serves as an organizing construct to understand and solve multi-dimensional problems in the biological and social and sciences, such as represented by the NBDA. In this role, she has directed efforts to develop transformative knowledge networks that leverage convergent knowledge, innovative teams and novel funding approaches to better prevent and treat acute and chronic diseases. The NBDA will employ this model.

Prior to joining ASU, Dr. Barker served as the Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and as Deputy Director for Strategic Scientific Initiatives for several years where she developed and implemented multi/trans-disciplinary programs including: the Nanotechnology Alliance for Cancer; The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) – in collaboration with the National Human Genome Research Institute; and the Clinical Proteomics Technologies Initiative for Cancer; the Physical Sciences- Oncology Centers – PS-OCs); and major national efforts in biospecimen best practices (CaHUB) and bioinformatics (CaBIG). All of these program emphasize the synergy of large scale and individual initiated research, precompetitive research, public databases and clinical to more effectively detect prevent and treat cancer. She also oversaw the NCI’s international cancer research programs, including pilot programs in Latin America and China.

In the biomarker area, Dr. Barker was the founding co-chair of the NCI-FDA Interagency Task Force; founding co-chair of the Cancer Steering Committee of the FNIH Biomarker Consortium; and is the founding Director of the National Biomarker Development Alliance (NBDA). Dr. Barker has a long history in research and the leadership and management of research and development in the academic, non-profit and private sectors. She served as a senior scientist and subsequently as a senior executive at Battelle Memorial Institute for 18 years; and co-founded and served as the CEO of a public biotechnology drug development company. She has received a number of awards for her work in support of cancer research, cancer patients, professional and advocacy organizations and the ongoing national effort to prevent and cure cancer. Her research interests include biomarker discovery and development, complex adaptive systems science, and free-radical biochemistry in cancer etiology and treatment. Dr. Barker completed her M.A. and Ph.D. at the Ohio State University, where she trained in immunology and microbiology.

Joshua LaBaer is one of the nation’s foremost investigators in the rapidly expanding field of personalized medicine. His efforts involve the discovery and validation of biomarkers - unique molecular fingerprints of disease - which can provide early warning for those at risk of major illnesses, including cancer and diabetes.
The Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics (VGPCPD) has a highly multidisciplinary staff of molecular biologists, cell biologists, biochemists, software engineers, database specialists, bioinformaticists, biostatisticians, and automation engineers with individuals ranging from Ph.D. and M.D. degrees to graduate students to technical support individuals. An organizing principle of VGPCPD is the application of open reading frame clones to the high throughput (HT) study of protein function.

Dr. LaBaer was an early initiator and leader of the effort to build fully sequence-verified recombination-based clone sets for human genes and other model organisms now managed in an automated repository with more than 250,000 samples, which are openly shared with the scientific community. His laboratory has developed a number of methods to employ these clones, including HT protein expression and purification, and HT screens of ectopic protein expression in mammalian cells for relevant phenotypes.

In addition, his group invented a novel protein microarray technology, Nucleic Acid Programmable Protein Array, which has been used widely for biomedical research, including the recent discovery of a panel of 28 autoantibody biomarkers that may aid the early diagnosis of breast cancer.

Formerly founder and director of the Harvard Institute of Proteomics, LaBaer was recruited to ASU’s Biodesign Institute as the first Piper Chair in Personalized Medicine in 2009.
Dr. LaBaer completed both his medical internship and residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a clinical fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, both in Boston. He is a board certified physician in internal medicine and medical oncology and was an instructor and clinical fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has contributed more than 120 original research publications, reviews and chapters. LaBaer is an associate editor of the Journal of Proteome Research and a member of the editorial boards of Analytical Biochemistry, Current Opinion in Biotechnology, Cancer Biomarkers, Molecular Biosystems, and Clinical Proteomics. He is a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Board of Scientific Advisors and serves as chair of the National Cancer Institute’s Early Detection Research Network Executive Committee and Co-Chair of its Steering Committee. He is a Research Affiliate with the Mayo Clinic and treasurer and president-elect of the U.S. Human Proteome Organization. He also serves on a number of government and industry scientific advisory boards.

LaBaer earned his medical degree and a doctorate in biochemistry and biophysics, from the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Penny is the CEO of the International Genomics Consortium and also serves as a board member and Chief Medical Officer. He has leadership roles in the Cancer Genome Atlas project (TCGA) as the Principal Investigator for the Biospecimen Core Resource (BCR) and for TCGA’s Tissue Source Site network. He has created a world-class biorepository at IGC through their expression project for Oncology (expO), which is characterized both clinically with treatment and outcome data as well as molecularly. He has historical competencies in tissue and data standards to complement the high quality biospecimens that he has accrued.

Dr. Penny is one of the Founders, CEO and a board member of Paradigm, a new cutting-edge advanced diagnostics company that is bringing next generation sequencing and other technologies to personalized medicine. The company is located in Phoenix and Ann Arbor.

While at the IGC, he founded the Molecular Profiling Institute and served as its Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. The Molecular Profiling Institute is the first company to commercially introduce gene expression analysis into oncology in the U.S. He developed the Molecular Profiling Institute’s portfolio of molecular testing and pharmaceutical services which includes his successful commercially available holistic genomic analysis of cancer with its award-winning surgical oncology report (Target Now). He led the successful merger of the Molecular Profiling Institute into Caris Life Sciences.

Dr. Penny is a recognized expert in the translation of diagnostics into patient care as well as in biorepositories. He has established two national esoteric reference medical laboratories, a national tissue bank and analysis center, and a national genomics program. He has helped bring cellular and molecular diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic testing to patient care throughout the nation with leukemia, lymphoma and solid tumors. He has headed up genomic strategies for one of the nation’s largest medical diagnostic corporations and chaired committees for TCGA leadership.

In September, Dr. Penny received the College of American Pathologists’ 2012 Distinguished Patient Care Award. The College of American Pathologists honored Dr. Penny for his extensive scientific translational research to accelerate the adoption of molecular pathways and associated therapies into the field of pathology and oncology to improve the lives of cancer patients. In 2011, the AZ BioIndustry Association honored Dr. Penny with the Jon W. McGarity Leadership Award for his vision in advancing cancer personalized medicine and success in leading the industry.

Dr. Penny received his B.S., M.S., Ph.D. (Genetics) and M.D. from the University of Arizona and then went on to receive his pathology training at Harvard’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where he served as Chief Resident and completed fellowships in hematopathology and surgical pathology. Dr. Penny currently is an associate professor at the University of Michigan. Dr. Penny’s contributions include a textbook in oncology, publication of articles and leadership roles in laboratory management.

CAROLYN COMPTON, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer, National Biomarker Development Alliance
Professor, School of Life Sciences
Arizona State University

As chief medical officer of the NBDA, she works closely with trans-sector external experts on all phases of specific network-enabled projects to address major barriers in the biomarker development process. In this role she plans and implements consensus conferences, prioritizes and integrates existing guidelines, best practice and other standards to identify targeted needs for demonstration projects and new research. She also leads the NBDA’s programs in biospecimens and biorepositories and implements specific programs that include clinical trials.

Dr. Compton is a nationally prominent academic pathologist specializing in gastrointestinal disease and is board certified in both anatomic and clinical pathology. She is a Professor at Arizona State University and an Adjunct Professor of Pathology at both the University of Arizona and Johns Hopkins. At ASU she is on the faculty of the School of Life Sciences and at Mayo Clinic, she is a Research Affiliate in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

She is a member of the Biodesign Institute, and the Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative. She is a former Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Gastrointestinal Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Pathologist-in-Chief of the Boston Shriners Children’s Hospital. More recently she has served as the CEO and President of the Critical Path Institute (2012), the Director of Biorespositories and Biospecimen Research and the Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies program at the National Cancer Institute (2005-2011) , and the Strathcona Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology at McGill University and Pathologist-in-Chief of the McGill University Health Center (2000-2005). She is the immediate past Chair of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) and the Chair of the Precision Medicine Core of the AJCC. She has authored more than 500 scientific manuscripts, review articles, books and chapters. Dr. Compton received her M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Donald Berry is a professor in the Department of Biostatistics of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He was founding Chair of this department in 1999 and founding Head of the Division of Quantitative Sciences, including the Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, in 2006. Dr. Berry received a Ph.D. in statistics from Yale University, and previously served on the faculties of the University of Minnesota and Duke University. He held endowed faculty positions at Duke University and at M.D. Anderson. Since 1990 he has served as a faculty statistician on the Breast Cancer Committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, a national oncology group. He has designed and supervised the conduct of many large U.S. intergroup trials in breast cancer. A principal focus of his research is the use of biomarkers in cancer and other diseases for learning which patients benefit from which therapies, based on genomics and phenotype. He designed and is a co-PI of I-SPY 2 www.ispy2.org, a Bayesian adaptive platform clinical trial in high-risk early breast cancer whose goal is matching experimental therapies with patient subsets defined by tumor molecular characteristics. Since 1997 he has served on the PDQ Screening and Prevention Board of the National Cancer Institute for which he received the National Institutes of Health Award of Merit in 2010. Through Berry Consultants, LLC he has designed many innovative clinical trials for pharmaceutical and medical device companies and for NIH cooperative groups. Dr. Berry is the author of several books on statistical methodology and over 300 published articles, including first-authored articles in the major medical journals. Dr. Berry has been the principal investigator for numerous research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

Dr. Ken Buetow is a human genetics and genomics researcher who leverages computational tools to understand complex traits such as cancer, liver disease, and obesity. Dr. Buetow currently serves as Director of Computational Sciences and Informatics program for Complex Adaptive Systems at Arizona State University (CAS@ASU) and is a professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

CAS@ASU applies systems approaches that leverage ASU’s interdisciplinary research strengths to address complex global challenges. The Computational Sciences and Informatics program is developing and applying information technology to collect, connect, and enhance trans-disciplinary knowledge both within ASU and across the broader knowledge-generating ecosystems. CAS@ASU is creating a Next Generation Cyber Capability to address the challenges and opportunities afforded by “Big Data” and the emergence of 4th Paradigm Data Science. This capability brings state-of-the-art computational approaches to CAS@ASU’s trans-disciplinary, use-inspired research efforts.

Dr. Buetow previously served as the Director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology within the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute (NCI). In that capacity he initiated and oversaw the NCI’s efforts to connect the global cancer community through community-developed, standards-based, interoperable informatics capabilities that enable secure exchange and use of biomedical data. Buetow designed and built one of the largest biomedical computing efforts in the world. He was responsible for coordinating biomedical informatics and information technology at the NCI. The NCI center he led focused on speeding scientific discovery and facilitated translational research by coordinating, developing and deploying biomedical informatics systems, infrastructure, tools and data in support of NCI research initiatives.

NOLA HYLTON, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Radiololgy and Biomedical Imaging
University of California, San Francisco

Nola Hylton, Ph.D. is Professor of Radiology and Biomedical lmaging at University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on the development and clinical optimization of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for breast cancer detection, diagnosis and staging. Dr. Hylton serves as Principal Investigator for the multi-center American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) clinical trials 6657 and 6698, evaluating advanced breast MRI techniques for assessing breast cancer response to pre-operative chemotherapy. Dr. Hylton also leads two NCI-funded efforts to improve the integration of quantitative imaging (QI) in breast cancer clinical trials through the development of software tools and quality control processes. She is a current member of the ACRIN Breast Committee, American College of Radiology (ACR) Accreditation Committee for Breast MRI, Susan G. Komen Scholars and the Advisory Council for the NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Dr. Poste serves as the interim chief science officer for the NBDA. In this role, through the NBDA’s think tanks and workshops and literature and other sources, he works closely with the Alliance team to identify and prioritize key barriers in the discovery and development modules of biomarker development. He also creates networks among relevant stakeholders to plan and implement solution strategies for the barriers identified.

Dr. Poste is Regent’s Professor and Del E. Webb Chair of Health Innovation at Arizona State University. He founded and built The Biodesign Institute at ASU and served as its Director from 2003 to 2009. In 2009 he launched the Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) at ASU which integrates research across disciplines to study the altered regulation of molecular networks in human diseases to provide a contemporary basis for the development of targeted disease interventions, inclusive of remote monitoring of health status using miniaturized body sensors and mobile devices.

Dr. Poste is a Fellow of the U.K. Royal Society, the Royal College of Pathologists and the U.K. Academy of Medicine, a Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a member of the Council for Foreign Relations and the U. S. Institute of Medicine Board on Global Health. He has served as a member of the Defense Science Board of the U.S. Department of Defense and currently serves on advisory committees for several U.S. government agencies in defense, intelligence, national security and healthcare. He has published extensively on pharmaceutical technologies, cancer and infectious diseases. He was honored in 1999 by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II as a Commander of the British Empire for his contributions to international healthcare and security. He serves on the Board of Directors of Monsanto, Exelixis, Caris Life Sciences, and the Scientific Advisory Boards of Burrill and Company and Synthetic Genomics. From 1992 to 1999, he was Chief Science and Technology Officer and President, R&D, of SmithKline Beecham (SB) where he was associated with the registration of 31 drug, vaccine and diagnostic products. He has received a number of awards including Scientist of the Year by R&D Magazine, the Einstein Award from the Global Business Leadership Council, 2006; and the Scrip Lifetime Achievement Award, 2009.

ROBERT MITTMAN M.S.
Founder, Founder, Facilitation | Foresight | Strategy;
Director, Biomedical Strategy & Knowledge Development, Complex Adaptive Systems
Professor of Practice, School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering and the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University

As founder of Facilitation, Foresight, Strategy, Robert Mittman works with groups of organizations to discover and implement shared approaches to complex and intractable problems. He engages audiences in a lively exchange of perspectives to turn simple meetings into forums that allow diverse individuals to work productively together.

Robert specializes as a scientific strategist. He helps large groups of scientists from diverse disciplines articulate shared areas of interest, frame significant and innovative research questions, and identify opportunities for new partnerships and collaborations to advance the development of new fields of science.

Robert facilitates strategic thinking with non-profit health organizations, government agencies, and the for-profit health care industry, including the National Cancer Institute; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Association for Cancer Research; the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine; Health Level 7; the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society; the Angiogenesis Foundation; the California HealthCare Foundation; Johnson and Johnson; Ascension Health; and Kaiser-Permanente. Recent work has included integrating the disciplines of biophysics, physical chemistry, and mathematics into biological research; developing a vision of how information technology can improve quality and safety in a range of health care settings from research to the clinic to the home; and crafting a vision for personalized health care.

For nearly two decades, Robert provided strategic advice to health care organizations as director at Institute for the Future. Robert holds graduate degrees in computer science and public policy analysis, and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering, all from the University of California at Berkeley.